Assessment of fertility in male mice chronically exposed to variable dietary omega 3 fatty acid levels.

Jornada; Reunión Conjunta de Sociedades de Biociencias; 2020

SAIC/SAFIS

Background: dietary levels of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids(ω3 PUFA) are reflected in tissue PUFA composition and can influence several processes of mammalian reproductive function. In aprevious mouse study, we observed that chronic dietary ω3 PUFAdeficiency produced an increase of bending immature sperm forms,which in turn can be harmful to sperm migration and oocyte fertilization. Objectives: to assess the effect of dietary ω3 PUFA levelon male reproductive capacity in vivo and the oxidative stress inepididymal sperm. Material and methods: albino Swiss mice wereexposed to ω3 PUFA Control (soybean oil, 7%), Deficient (sunfloweroil, 7%), or Excess (blend oil; 4.2% cod-liver+2.8% soybean) dietbefore conception until adulthood. Five males per treatment wereindividually mated to two adult females fed with commercial pellet.On gestational day 18, dams were euthanized and their uteri andovaries dissected to assess: number of live and atrophied fetuses,litter weight, number of corpora lutea and embryo loss. Other eightmales per treatment were euthanized, and their epididymides dissected to evaluate the sperm production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) by chemiluminescence. Statistics: ANOVA and LSD posthoc test. Results: no significant differences in the assayed reproductive parameters were found among groups: number of fetuses(F(2,26)= 0.63, P=0.53), atrophied fetuses (F(2,26)=0.08, P=0.92),litter weight (F(2,26)=1.17, P=0.32), corpora lutea (F(2,26)= 0.06,P=0.93) and percentage of embryo loss (F(2,26)= 1.53, P=0.23).Regarding sperm ROS production, no significant differences amongexperimental groups were found (F(2,21)=0.18, P=0.83). Conclusions: these results indicate that bending sperm immaturity in PUFAω3 deficient mice is not related to higher ROS production and doesnot affect in vivo fertilization capability. Further investigations areneeded to better understand the relevance of dietary PUFA ω3 inmale fertility.